Minnesota Man Steals $25,000 Worth of Tide Detergent

If it’s gotta be clean, it’s gotta be Tide. If it’s gotta be stolen Tide, it’s gotta be Patrick Paul Costanzo. Costanzo systemically stole $25,000 worth of Tide liquid detergent from a St. Paul, Minnesota store over the course of a year.

About a week ago, managers at the Wal-Mart in West St. Paul noticed that $25,000 worth of Tide had been missing from their inventory over the last 15 months. So they started playing recent surveillance tapes and spotted Costanzo, 53, of South Saint Paul coming into the store and swiping Tide bottles “four to five days” a week between January and February. He’d simply place the detergent, as well as other items, into his cart and roll them to his car without paying. The store alerted police, who caught Costanzo in the act.

All in all, Costanzo could have done over 82,500 loads of laundry with his soapy plunder. He probably thought it was going to a clean getaway, too.